The Road to Darkness
by tortuousphoenix
Summary: Post Movie, Clint's attempts to convince everyone else and himself that he is okay following the events of the movie slowly fall away as he falls further and further into the darkness of his mind. Clint/Nat


For Pennydrdful.

This was written for a Secret Santa exchange on LJ's Be Compromised comm for Pennydrdful. The original prompt was 'Nat helps Clint mentally recover from Loki's spell. There isn't as much Nat as I would have liked but once I started writing this is the path the story took.

Major thanks for my Beta's and Cheerleaders Whiskyinmind, Alphaflyer and Shenshen77.

Due to now allowing me to code HTML in here all flashbacks are in Italics. You'll find an easier to read version on AO3, just search for my username.

* * *

Clint groaned as his fist connected with the wall. He'd never really paid much attention when people told him, usually with some amount of reverence, what the helicarrier was made of. But now he could definitely attest to the fact that it was a solid and very unyielding metal.

Closing his eyes he forced himself to take a deep breath, then another and another as he tried to calm down. He didn't dare turn around; he knew the other agents in the gym were staring at him, were probably shying away from him. They were all still scared of him and it pissed him off. But right now he didn't want to face any of them, so after one more deep breath he slowly opened his eyes, removed his fist from the wall and walked out of the gym, straight to his quarters.

He sat on his bed and tried to focus on his breathing. In out, in out, in out, just hoping the repetition would help calm him. It didn't. Springing to his feet he began pacing the room, then sat down again. Paced. Sat. Paced. Sat. He couldn't decide what he wanted to be doing. He was angry, but he didn't know why.

Having settled on sitting for the moment he looked at his now very red hand. He stretched and twisted each finger in turn; cracking the knuckles and making sure nothing was broken. As he went through his usual post battle routine he tried to empty his mind; to focus on the task in front of him and to stop searching for a reason for his anger.

It had been three months since the battle with Loki and everything around him had gone back to something approaching normal – almost as if nothing had happened. But Clint was all too aware that he could never go back. The encounter with Loki had changed him would never be the same again.

Thor had left with Loki and they hadn't heard from him again although he knew Bruce was working on a way to simulate the bridge that had once existed between their worlds. Stark wasn't being much help, of course; he was more interested in what new toys were being built into the tower he and Pepper were in the process of rebuilding. Steve had left shortly after Thor and Loki, planning to explore the new world he'd found himself in; a few postcards were the only contact they'd had from him.

That left just him… and Natasha.

Clint sighed heavily as he thought of her. The Black Widow; so vibrant but so broken. He'd always wondered how she functioned after everything she had been through. He'd never understood how i_anyone_/i could carry on, but he knew after everything that had happened heneeded to figure it out, he needed to know how to make it all to make it alright. He needed to know how to keep living after everything he did, but he had no idea where to start.

Lying back he thought about the night after the battle. They'd all been so quiet in that damn-near-destroyed shawarma restaurant, and he'd been so happy just to have survived that he could do nothing but enjoy the moment. A bitter laugh escaped his lips as he realized thatnight was the last time he was really at peace.

After dinner he and Nat had done what they always did after a messy battle: holed up in some out-of-the way safe house, somewhere S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't find them, somewhere ino one/i would find them. They tended to each other's wounds, found comfort in each other's arms, revelled in the fact they were both still alive.

But it was then that the nightmares had started.

Back in his quarters, Clint got to his feet and started pacing again; shaking his head, trying to wipe the memory from his mind, but it was persistent.

_One minute he was spent and sated in his lover's arms, the next he was ihim/i again, 'the other guy'. He knew Bruce liked to call his alter ego that and Clint thought it was appropriate; it was how he felt about the person he'd been under Loki's spell. 'The other guy' had taken over and with Loki looking on he'd done unspeakable things. He had hurt not only the agency he worked for, the agents he'd called friends, but the woman he liked to call his. He knew her deepest fears - 'the other guy' would have made her live each one of them._

_He thrashed and kicked in his sleep as the dream progressed, only to be woken by a fist connecting with his jaw and a worried looking Natasha sitting astride his hips._

_"What the hell were you dreaming about?" sheasked in a calm voice, but Clint could see the hint of fear in her eyes as she stared down at him._

_"Nothing," he said, trying to push her off._

_She pushed him back to the mattress. "If you think you're getting out of this that easily, Barton, you've got another think coming."_

_"Seriously Nat, it's nothing." He sighed, he didn't know how to tell her what it was. Knowing that she would never trust him again if she knew. "Like you said before, it's just going to take some time for me to level 's why we're here, right?"_

_"I guess," she said quietly and he could tell she was weighing his words, searching for the truth from the only man in the world that could lie to her._

_"Come on Nat," he implored her, "you've been there, right? You know what it's like and knowing you, you just locked yourself away for a few days, then threw yourself back into ?"_

_"Well…" She hesitated._

_"Well nothing," he replied sounding stronger than he felt. "We'll hide out here for a few days, then_  
_head back in for our next assignment and work out any remaining 'issues' on the next creep who crosses our paths."_

_"Fair enough," she said, a worried smile ghosted across her lips as she leaned down to kiss him, ending the discussion and getting back to what they did best, losing themselves in each other._

Clint almost wanted to cry out loud as he thought about those few days in the safe house and realized that the restaurant wasn't the last peace he'd known - it had been those hours he'd spent enthralled in her, when she had taken him out of himself and made him forget everything and everyone but her.

It hadn't lasted.

Angry as always at their post-mission disappearing act, Fury had sent them on different missions to opposite ends of the planet and suddenly Clint was left all alone, just him and his thoughts for company.

Looking back now, Clint couldn't even remember what that mission had been; watching someone he thought, maybe hunting for undetected; that was the only part of the mission he remembered and the part of it he knows he screwed up.

_Perched on a rooftop opposite the mark's hotel he was bored. With nothing to do but watch, his mind had too much time to wander; to think back; to replay the events of his possession by Loki. He needed a distraction, so when the mark went to bed he found the nearest open bar. Three nights in a row he lost himself in the local firewater that passed for liquor in whatever dumb little town he was in, before falling back to base for a few hours attempt at sleep before starting the day all over again. On the fourth night, as he discovered the bottom of yet another bottle, he found himself picking a fight with some local guy twice his size. Normally one guy, no matter his size, wouldn't be a problem, but this guy had friends. He woke up in an alley sometime after sunrise the next day. Groaning at the hangover, the injuries he didn't have time to catalogue and the fact he was out of position and had probably lost his mark, he hauled himself up and found his way back to his rooftop perch._

_By the time he arrived his handler was there waiting for him. Clint had been spotted and the mark was jumpy. He was officially off the case and confined to the helicarrier for 'medical attention', but Clint knew that was code for 'psychiatric evaluation'. He'd been through the mill more than once - almost every member of S.H.I.E.L.D. had at some point - so he knew all the right things to sayand do. He knew to fess up to just enough to satisfy their curiosity without letting them know just how fucked up he really was. It was the same dance he'd done more than once and he knew the steps by heart._

_Released a week later with a clean bill of health, he went straight to the shooting range and spent the rest of the day firing arrows at every and any target in his path. He was calm there, lost in a world that consisted only of him, his bow, his arrows and his target. That life was easy and uncomplicated. But S.H.I.E.L.D agents don't just practice and he knew sooner rather than later he'd be back out in the field._

Sitting alone in his room he couldn't help but wonder if he should have been more honest with the doctors; maybe they could have fixed him. He shook the thought out of his head, knowing that he was beyond help, that he was damaged, that he couldn't be fixed - and that he just needed to find a way to make it through each day without killing someone, or himself.

After the evaluation the missions came thick and fast. Take out a sniper with a contract to kill the President during a trip to Romania. Find and bring in a missing asset in Colombia. Locate a missing shipment destined to help in the rebuilding efforts in Iraq. Babysit (from a distance), the heiress to a global oil empire during a visit to the States. They were many and they were varied, and he relished the chance to keep busy.

The only problem with these missions was his constant companion. For every single one, he had a partner. He'd been told the assignments were too important and too complex to send just one agent, but he knew S.H.I.E.L.D. just wanted to keep an eye on him. It had been useful at first, someone else there to talk and bounce things off; having partners kept his brain from wandering during the quiet moments and they kept him busy, kept him from thinking too much. But the longer it went on the more annoyed he got. He didn't need a babysitter.

To make it worse, the people assigned to Barton watch detail obviously didn't want to be there either. They were trained agents, they knew how to control their emotions and reactions but even so he could see it in their eyes. They were scared of him, resented being his minder as much as he hated having them there. But they also pitied him, the broken agent who'd stayed too long at the party. He hated them, every single one of them.

_He'd had a different agent for each mission and somehow, it was never Natasha. He hadn't let himself think about her often, scared it would restart the nightmares of what Loki had wanted him to do to her, but every now and then he'd catch a glimpse of red hair and he'd turn, expecting to see her slinking into an alleyway, looking back at him with that 'come hither' smile he loved so much. Each time he'd turn and search the crowd, looking for her, needing her, but she was never there._

_After two months of non-stop missions he hadn't had a chance to see her.. That wasn't necessarily a long time for them to go without seeing each other, but he missed her, more than usual. He wanted to see her, to lose himself in her, but at the same time he was scared that 'the other guy' might come back; that he would hurt her and he knew that was something he'd never be able to live with._

Back in his quarters he was on his feet again and in his bathroom, throwing water in his face as he remembered the one time when they had met again.

_They had been on individual missions that suddenly collided; she was hunting an assassin who was apparently targeting the person Clint had been assigned to protect. Both entered the building separately, both with their eye on their respective targets and completely unaware the other was there. They were both on scene as a riot broke out in the building, a diversion organized by the assassin to eliminate his target in plain sight and never have it traced back to him. Seeing her in the middle of the fight, Clint briefly wondered just how S.H.I.E.L.D. operations had screwed up and not figured out the killer he'd been waiting for was the same one another agent had been trailing. But the fight moved too quickly and was over too fast for him to dwell on it._

_Bruised and bloodied they worked together, protected the girl, took down her would-be killer and saved the day. Then as usual, they disappeared and let others take the credit. Without a word they got out of the way and headed for the nearest safe-house._

_Wounds were forgotten the second they were through the door. Clint turned and thrust his hand into her hair, pulling her to him, hungrily claiming her mouth. He heard her soft gasp at the contact and it spurred him on. His spine tingled as she snaked her arms around his waist and molded herself against his body. His free hand found its way to the small of her back, holding her firmly in place. He loved the feel of her against him and his heart ached to be closer to her, to be inside her, to claim her. He pulled at her hair, tilting her head back to give access to her throat and he smiled against her skin when she groaned as he ran his teeth over the sensitive flesh. Her hands and nails were clawing at his back, trying to hold on to something, to anything, as her body yielded to his touch._

_In one swift movement he turned them around and pushed her against the wall in the darkened hallway. His mouth was once more assaulting hers as if it had been years since they'd seen each other instead of just a few months. Clint wasn't exactly sure what had overtaken him but he didn't care, he wanted her, he needed her and he needed her inow/i._

_With deft fingers he unzipped her skintight black cat suit. Wrenching his lipsfrom hers he trailed kisses down her jaw and further, following the zip as it slid downwards, slowly revealing the silky-smooth, creamy skin hidden underneath. After pulling off her boots and the last remnants of the suit he stood back to gaze at her; standing there in front of him in just her bra and panties she truly took his breath away._

_"Clint," she whispered._

_His name on her lips was enough to jolt him back to action. Grabbing her once more he pushed her roughly back against the wall. Cupping her ass he lifted her from the ground and groaned as her legs wrapped around him. She wasted little time undoing his fly and allowing his rock hard cock to escape the tight confines of his pants._

_He watched,enthralled by the magnificent creature in front of him. Bracing her against the wall he positioned himself at her opening and thrust into her in one swift movement. She locked her eyes with his as he started to move. His movements were erratic right from the start, like he was a caged animal fighting to break free and her body was the instrument he was using to do it. He thrust up into her as hard as he could, reveling in the tightness of her body around him. She moved as much as she could in her present position, her rotating hips adding a different dimension to his thrusts, driving him crazy. Burying his head in her neck, smelling the sweet scent of her shampoo mixed with the unmistakable aroma of her arousal, he pounded into her again and again, searching, yearning for a release from everything he had been holding on to since his possession. She yelled his name as she came. Her back arching off the wall pushing her further down onto him, her pussy pulsing around him. He didn't stop moving, didn't stop striving for the release he started to fear would elude him._

_He stifled a groan of anguish in her hair as he kept pushing and fighting, searching for release._

_"Come for me, Clint," she whispered in his ear._

_Four little words, that was all it took and the release he'd needed for months finally arrived. He thrust up again and again as he rode out his orgasm before finally stilling inside her. She was cradling his head, kissing his temples, trying to sooth whatever was breaking his soul._

_As Clint calmed down he pulled out of her and supported her as she planted her feet firmly back on terra firma._

_"Hey," she said._

_"Hey yourself," he answered, smiling for what felt like the first time in ages._

Looking at himself in the mirror of his bathroom now, he tried to shake off the memory of what happened next. Kicking the bin, ripping down the shower curtain, knocking down the random toiletries someone kept filling his room with, anything to try and distract his mind but it was useless, the images invaded anyway.

_Slowly, smiling, they had undressed and showered together, and, in their usual ritual, tended to each other's wounds. Cuts were stitched and bumps were iced. Swollen limbs were wrapped and bones assessed for potential breaks. Satisfied with their handiwork, still without any words, they fell into bed and were fast asleep in seconds._

_And then the nightmare began._

___….._

_He's standing in a cold and desolate place; tall, grey rocks litter the ground all around him, snow and ice cover the ground at his feet. She's lying in front of him, bleeding, black and blue, but more harrowing is the look she gives him: she is the broken shell of the woman he knew, the woman he once loved. He laughs contemptuously at the pathetic sight in front of him._

_"He warned you, didn't he?" Clint asks._

_"Yes," her voice is a whisper._

_"You should have listened малютка, you could have saved yourself all this trouble." He smirks at her._

_Kneeling on top of her, he reaches for her neck. She no longer has the strength to fight him off; she is helpless as he does to her whatever he wants. He wraps his hands around her throat and gently starts to squeeze. He wants this to last. He can hear her attempts to scream, to call his name, to get through to him, to make him remember who he is. But it's futile; ithis/i is who he is now. He does Loki's bidding, he'll take down anyone in the way, including her and he'll enjoy doing it._

_He shakes his head at an irritating buzz in the distance. The life is draining out of her, it's almost over, but that damn buzz is getting stronger, more persistent, demanding his attention._

_"What?" he yells, turning in the direction of the rocks disappear from view, all he sees is the yellowed and peeling wallpaper of the safe-house, but he can still feel his hands around her neck. He turns back and gasps at Natasha, his Nat, lying helpless beneath his fingers. Her hands gripping his wrists that arestill clamped around her eyes wide with shock and fear as she gazes up at him. He jumps back off her, stumbling backwards until he hits the wall opposite the bed. He knows he should do something, call someone, do anything to make sure she is okay, but his mind is numb. He almost killed her. He iknew/i Loki was still in there, still controlling him and he'd nearly had his revenge._

_….._

He had run from the apartment, blindly stumbling through the streets in the rain for who knows how long, completely losing track of time. Somehow he had ended up back at S.H.I.E.L.D., apparently looking very calm. He went in, filed his post mission report and went to get his next mission, wholeheartedly expecting to be handcuffed and locked in the brig, but no-one mentioned Natasha. Leaving immediately he had beenglad to find he didn't have a babysitter this time, he laughed to himself as he thought they finally trusted him, just when they shouldn't.

The next month consisted of mission after mission and he came to realize that Natasha hadn't told anyone what happened - if she had he certainly wouldn't be out in the field. For no reason he could find, he was angry all the time. He did his job and he did it well, but his heart just wasn't in it - not anymore. He put one foot in front of the other, knowing he had a job to do, but every day it got a little harder. He never let his thoughts stray to Natasha. He had nearly killed her, just as Loki had promised he would, and he would never forgive himself for that; he knew she wouldn't either. He never let his mind stray to the next time he would have to see her. He lived from minute to minute, just trying to keep future was an unknown entity, something that he couldn't imagine, something that no longer belonged to him.

He gripped the sink in his quarters as he remembered everything that had happened in the last mind kept going back to the look in Natasha's eyes as he'd strangled her. He'd never seen the Black Widow scared - that was an emotion he thought she didn't have any longer, or at least one she never allowed anyone to see. To have brought that out in her was even more devastating; to think he might have broken her, just like he was broken was too much to bear.

Screaming out loud, he lifted his fist and punched the mirror above the sink.

"Clint." He turned at the sound of a voice at the bathroom door. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Nat," he breathed, drinking in the sight of her. "What are you doing here?"

"I just got through from debrief and Fury told me you'd tried to knock out the gym." She looked at him incredulously. "Why haven't you answered my calls, and what the hell happened to your quarters?"

"Nat, I…" He stood, lost for words as he looked at her. His legs failed him and he fell to the floor. She was at his side in a heartbeat.

"Clint?" she asked again, "what the hell is going on with you?"

"You're okay?" he asked instead of replying.

"I'm fine." She smiled at him "Which you'd have known if you hadn't run out into the rain then disappeared on a mission before I got back!"

"I was scared that I'd killed you."

"Do you remember what happened?"

"I remember getting to the safe house," he said trying to lighten the mood, to not think about what came next, "after that it's all kind of a blur."

"You were talking in your sleep," she started quietly. "You were talking about…" she stalled, looking at her hands as they rubbed her knees. "…about Loki and how he wanted you to kill me."

"Oh Jesus, Nat I…" He turned away from her. He couldn't look at her, she knew too much.

"Don't do that," she whispered, raising her hands to grip his face, turning it back round to face her. "Don't hide from me. Nothing gets better if you run away."

"You can't fix this," he answered, his voice barely even audible.

"I know I can't" She smiled. "But I can help, and so can other people."

"You can't fix what is broken."

"You're not broken Clint," she said quickly, strongly, with confidence. "You're a little damaged, but _damaged_can be fixed."

"I nearly killed you, I can't come back from that."

"You were once i_sent_/i to kill me remember?" She smiled at him, running her hands down his a towel she wrapped it around his bleeding hand, placing her hands over his. "I hurt a lot of people and came back from that. I don't think there is anything they won't forgive around here. Besides, no-one actually knows what happened but us and I think anyone, myself included, would argue that what Loki did to you would cause anyone to experience post-traumatic stress."

"I don't have PTSD," he insisted.

"Oh for God's sake Clint, open your eyes," she practically screamed at him. "It's been three months and you're trying to destroy the gym, not to mention your quarters. I'm guessing you're not sleeping and when you do you're having guess is you're reliving everythingthat happened, as well as thingsLoki only told you about."

"Nat…"

"What?" she demanded. "If you try and deny that's what's going on I'll hit you."

"Nat come on…"

"Come on what?" she shouted.

He sat up and gazed at her, a look of anguish on his face. She was right about what he'd been going through - but PTSD sounded too pedestrian for it, too clinical, too i_ordinary_/i. It didn't seem to fit with an alien overtaking his brain and making him kill people.

"Clint, I know what happened to you isn't exactly ordinary but that doesn't mean it wasn't stressful or thatyou aren't suffering the effects of it."

"Can you read my mind or something?" He laughed bitterly.

"I have many hidden talents," she replied softly. "And you know," she was smiling now, "I kinda know you pretty well."

Clint sighed as she looked at him, so trusting, so full of love, despite everything he'd done to her, but she just didn't get it.

"It's not PTSD."

"Someone took your brain and made you do things you didn't want-"

"That's i_not_/i what happened." Clint felt the anger surging again. He rose to his feet and smashedhis already bloodied fist against the cold tiles of the shower stall.

"You know this thing you have, about punching walls and mirrors? It really doesn't make you feel better and it just hurts, so why do you keep doing it?"

"Well, you know the definition of insanity right?"

"You're not insane." She sighed again and got up to take a look at his hand."It wasn't you; you need to give yourself a break."

"It was me," he said in a whisper so quiet he wasn't sure she heard.

"What do you mean?" she askedas she heldhis hand under the cold water.

"It was me," he said again, a little stronger. "The guy I was during that time. I've been calling him 'The Other Guy', like he wasn't part of me but that isn't true. Loki didn't pull my strings like a puppet; he didn't make me do things."

He kept his eyes down, focusing on the sting as she slowly and calmly pulled the tiny fragments of mirror from his hand while he talked.

"He asked me questions and I gave him answers. He asked me how to take down the helicarrier and I told him everything. I _wanted_ to tell him, I wanted to take this place down and I _didn't care_who got hurt in the process. It was all me Nat, I wasn't possessed."

"Oh, Clint," Nat said.

"Nat, I wanted to do these things!" his voice rose as he tried to make her understand. "This wasn't something I was forced to do. Yes, Loki made sure that I was loyal to that lunatic alien with the little brother complex, but I i_wanted_/i to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. I i_wanted_/i to burn it to the ground just so I could watch it disintegrate and I didn't care who got in my way."

"I know," she replied calmly.

"You can't really know!" He was yelling now, frustrated byher calmness. "If you really knew then you wouldn't be here, you'd be throwing me in a cell."

"You don't think I know what it's like?" Now i_she_/i was shouting. "You don't think I've been there? Been through exactly what you've been through?"

"Nat…"

"No," she continued, her voice firm now. "You don't get to play the martyr here; you don't get to be the bad guy. You were brainwashed to be loyal to an evil son of a bitch. You did his bidding with pleasure because he i_made you want/i_to please him. What you did during that time doesn't matter and you know how I know that."

She paused briefly to fix his eyes with hers.

"Because when you brought me in here I said 'you don't know what I've done' and you told me-" She grabbed his face again, pulling him down to her, "- that it didn't matter! You told me that nothing I'd done before mattered. You knew all about the Red Room, you knew what happened to me there and why I'd done the things I'd done, and you told me it wasi _not my fault/i_."

Clint stared down at her she panted, trying to get her breath back after her tirade. He remembered why he loved her. She was so passionate about what she believed in, it was hard not to get swept up in whatever cause she was arguing for. He wasn't sure she was right but he loved that she was fighting for him.

"Clint," she said again, but before she could get any further he snaked his arms around her waist, pulled her in close and claimed her mouth in a fierce kiss.

"Have I ever told you that I love you Natasha Romanoff?" he asked, breathless.

"Once or twice," she replied with a soft smile. "But I never tire of hearing it."

"Oh man," he sighed heavily, "what the hell do I do now?"

He gave an embarrassed laugh, looking around his destroyed quarters.

"You walk with me down to Medical; they check you out and decide how to help you. Then we come back here and destroy this room a little more."

Clint just looked at her; her smile lit up the room and for the first time in three months he finally felt like thing might just be going to be fine.


End file.
